Mardorakh WIP - crits desired

[Freodin]

The work in itself is very well done; the style well executed. Nice decent colour scheme and clear lines. If this piece is only meant to showcase certain techniques, it is quite a success and something you can indeed be pleased by.

Of course there are several things that could be improved. The labels seem distorted... you should use some kind of "text along path" instead of bending to shape them. The rivers are a little weak... you could try to reduce their numbers to the main ones and put more emphasis on these.

The compass rose... I'd say a graticule would be better suited for that style. It would add a sense of size and proportions to the map, as well as the projection used.
As it is now, it hints at some kind of mercator projection... and then I ask myself: why is it tilted?

But the thing that really bothered me when I read your post and saw the map: this is supposed to be a map from an historical atlas. You told us about the era in question and the changes that happened. Yet there is nothing at all about that in the map!
This is a great style for physical / geological maps... but as an historical map, it is seriously lacking.

[HBrown]

It's interesting that both comments I have received expressed concern over the tilted compass rose. In truth, I didn't add a graticule or a scale because I really had none in mind. I was playing with terrain generation stuff and just wanted it to look good for a continental scale. I suppose the whole map is on the order of four thousand kilometers wide. Anyway, lacking a scale or a map projection, I whipped up a quick compass rose. Then I tilted it a little 'cos I thought it looked cool that way. Now I know.

The whole historical atlas conceit arose because the map is in a modern style, but I envisioned the societies whose names I was making up wholesale as older and less rigidly organized. To rectify the contradiction, I called it an historical map. The whole paragraph about the atlas and the nations on it I made up as I was posting. I guess if I'm going to do that kind of thing, I should carry it all the way through.

Thanks for taking the time to comment!

Hugh